All That Blue Sky
by cupid-painted-blind
Summary: Twenty facts about Teddy Lupin that no one ever quite figured out.


**all that **blue** sky  
(twenty facts about teddy lupin that no one ever quite figured out)**

1. Even though everyone called him that, he _loathed_the nickname "Teddy." It made him think he ought to look like a stuffed bear, even moreso when he was six and Aunt Ginny made him a Halloween costume of a giant teddy bear. The only reason he did it was because Aunt Ginny was very, very pregnant and prone to sobbing fits when things didn't work out quite right.

At six years old, Teddy Lupin sacrificed what little dignity he possessed for a woman. He vaguely wondered if this was some sort of sign. Later, he _knew_it was.

2. Victoire told him once that she hated that nasty aqua colored he kept his hair as half the time. So, grinning, he changed his hair to vivid, vivid pink, until she conceded that aqua wasn't so bad. Breaking her resolve took far longer than he had hoped it would, and so he spent much of his fifth year at Hogwarts looking like he'd dunked his head in a vat of bubble gum.

3. He secretly thought that Lily Potter was adorable, but would rather gnaw off his own hand than admit it.

4. Even though James told everyone his middle name was Sirius, it was Frederick. For some reason, James looked up to Sirius Black more than Fred Weasley, and that always bothered Teddy. He never could gather the courage to tell James that it was cruel to his dead uncle, nor could he ever gather the courage to ask him why Sirius was more important to him than Fred. He figured it had something to do with his grandfather.

(Many, many years later, James told him that it was because Sirius Black was infamous - everyone knew who Sirius Black was and if he walked around bearing that name, people would notice him. No one remembered Fred Weasley, no matter how interesting he was.)

5. Teddy named his first son Frederick, because of this.

6. He hated his second cousin Scorpius with every fiber of his being. The boy seemed to exist to suck up to teachers and embarrass himself, and Teddy thought that he was the biggest fool he'd ever seen. He also knew very well that the feeling was mutual.

7. For many years, he believed that his father would have been disappointed in him. It wasn't until Victoire took his hand and smiled at him and told him that she thought he was wonderful that he decided that Remus Lupin would have loved him, had he lived.

8. He always wondered what possessed his grandmother to name his mother Nymphadora. It was a pretty stupid name.

9. He once had a sneaking suspicion that Lily had a crush on him while they were at Hogwarts (she was a second year when he was a seventh), and so snuck into her room one summer and rummaged through her things. His suspicions were confirmed when he found a picture of Victoire, torn in half, and the words _Lily Lupin_ scribbled into the margin. Instead of being horrified or slightly disturbed, he laughed until he cried and gave her a big hug the next morning. She never did understand why.

10. He always wanted a flying motorcycle, like the one Sirius Black had. That thing must have looked _awesome._

11. Even though he chose to become a Hufflepuff, and even though he always showed an almost ridiculous amount of house pride, he absolutely hated the common room, and thought that badgers were the evilest, most vile creatures he had ever come across. All because of one time when he was four years old and got on the bad side of one. On the plus side, however, his run-in with the badger did lead to his first sign of magic, because it took a literal miracle to get that_thing _away from him.

Uncle Ron always thought this was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. Teddy pouted for _weeks_, mostly because Uncle Ron hadn't tried to save him from the ravages of the beast.

12. With every little piece of his soul, he hated owls. They were annoying and loud and messy and he hated them.

13. Once, he ate a whole bowl of habañero peppers, as a dare. He ate all of them without flinching, and didn't react for the longest time, until all of his friends were completely convinced that he had the tongue of a God. Exactly fourteen seconds after the last friend went to bed, he catapulted out of his chair, out of the common room, and ran to the kitchens so fast he thought he might have apparated, and immediately began drinking anything vaguely liquid he could get his hands on, including a big bowl of uncooked dough. The house-elves all stared at him in a mixture of awe and horror.

And then he made the mistake of going to the bathroom, pepper sauce still on his fingers.

He hated his friends for several weeks after that.

14. He always dreamed of being a pilot. All that blue sky, all the power under your fingers, all the clouds around you - he always thought that those Muggles knew what they were doing, more than little boys playing with brooms. He supposed it must feel completely liberating, to take your life into your hands, to trust your fate to a machine you control, to push the lever and free fall into nothing. To dance across the open sky like a bird, to watch the world from behind glass, without the cold of heights or the biting wind to pull you out. He wanted, most of all, to make an airplane with a big glass bottom, so he could stand in the middle and feel like he was floating.

Surrounded by blue, open air above and tiny blurs of life below - Teddy thought that must be the best feeling in the world.

15. Even though he loved the boy like a little brother, he thought that Albus Severus was the stupidest name he'd ever heard.

16. The best day of his life was in his sixth year, two weeks before his birthday. It had been threatening rain for days, and finally, the bottom fell out and it began to pour in lightning-studded fury. Without thinking of the consequences for an instant, he ran out into the storm and danced like a fool. Victoire and James and Lily and Hugo all stood in the doorway, laughing at him and cheering. Before long, everyone was in a knock-down, drag-out, mud-slinging fight.

By the next morning, they were all miserable with colds, but it was more than worth it.

17. At school, he found himself oddly drawn to the Gryffindor Head of House - the Herbology teacher, who had graduated with Uncle Harry. Later, he discovered that Professor Longbottom's parents were slowly wasting away in St. Mungo's, and he decided to become a Healer.

18. His eyes were naturally a very light brown, almost yellow, that he was told he inherited from his father. He hated that color; Victoire said it was lovely.

19. Once, he visited a cathedral, and he thought it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Hogwarts was nice, but Hogwarts was so _busy,_ so teeming with life that it was impossible to stop and breathe, unless he stayed over for Christmas, which he never did. But that cathedral, it was silent and solemn and peaceful, and he thought he could spend hours there, just drinking in the calm.

20. The first time he visited the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black - and the only time he visited it - he stood in the Drawing Room and stared at the tapestry, suddenly overwhelmed by the sheer _age_of this place. He was a part of a legacy that went far beyond himself and far beyond his mother or his grandmother. He was a member of a dead, age-old family that would never have accepted him, even if they'd been alive to do so.

Without being fully aware of his actions, he sneaked into the kitchen and returned to the Drawing Room with a large butcher knife. In one move, he sliced the tapestry in half, straight through the middle. It made an odd, musical sound, much like the string of a harp might make if broken, and fell to the ground at his feet.

His grandmother walked in, looked at the tapestry and then at Teddy, and made an odd noise in the back of her throat, but didn't scold him. Instead, she gently took the knife from his fingers and led him out. As they left the room, however, she glanced back - _to see it one last time_, she told him later, _because you can never really escape your roots._ With that, they left and locked the door behind him.

As far as Teddy knew, no one else ever went into that house.


End file.
